After last Chesapeake Bay cleanup plan fell short, new proposal aims to be flexible, data-driven

This article was originally published by Maryland Matters.

When they last signed a Chesapeake Bay cleanup agreement in 2014, officials from seven jurisdictions set ambitious targets and a hard deadline of 2025.

They didn’t quite make it.

So as they drafted the next agreement, which was released to the public Tuesday, they did things a little differently: Some targets shifted, deadlines were staggered and some goals have yet to be set, awaiting new computer modeling that will show the most up-to-date picture of bay pollutants.

The preliminary plan includes refreshed goals for oyster restoration, underwater grass acreage, public access sites and wetland plantings, among a host of other subjects. And that’s before terms like “diversity” and “climate change” were tweaked at the request of the Trump administration.

But officials think the plan, months in development and still months from completion, will be worth it.

“One thing we’ve heard over and over again — and frankly, for probably since the beginning of time with this agreement — is the need for it to be something that people actually can understand and see themselves in. And I think we worked really hard to make sure that each one of these outcomes did just that,” said Maryland Secretary of Natural Resources Josh Kurtz, who chairs the Chesapeake Bay Program committee that was behind Tuesday’s revisions.

The draft plan includes different deadlines for different outcomes: Some goals are set for 2030, many are in 2035 or 2040. Kurtz said that allowed for a more individualized approach to each goal, making use of the latest science.

“That’s one of the places we’re most excited to get feedback from the public,” Kurtz said. “Is 10 years right? Is 15 years right? Do we want to set targets that are more interim?”

One of the key goals of the 2014 plan was to limit nitrogen and phosphorus runoff and sediment pollution, the villains behind the bay’s oxygen-deprived summer “dead zones” where crabs, oysters and fish can no longer survive. Sediment goals had been met by last year, but the six bay states and the District of Columbia had achieved only 92% of phosphorous reduction goals and 59% of the nitrogen target, despite billions being spent.

The new plan gives experts until 2030 to develop a goal for nutrients and sediment, as they await new data from an updated computer model that estimates pollution flow, said Anna Killius, executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, which convenes lawmakers from Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia to discuss bay issues.

“That process of updating the model takes time, and has to be peer reviewed. And so, we’re not in a place where we can speed that up, and really still call it sound, good science,” Killius said. “We can’t really put new numbers in place — or ask the jurisdictions to plan around those numbers — until we’ve got that model up and running.”

The nutrient and sediment targets are not likely to change, since they were set in 2010 by the Environmental Protection Agency. The new plan will likely focus on a new timeline or methodology for achieving the total maximum daily load, or TMDL.

“We’re working with the how,” Killius said. “So, what is going to be our plan of attack in getting to what the TMDL tells us we need to do?”

The new computer modeling was originally expected January, but officials now expect about a yearlong delay before that’s done, said Lee McDonnell, acting director of the EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program office.

Kurtz said Bay Program officials understand that the lack of new nutrient and sediment timelines may “lend a feeling of uncertainty” to the bay restoration effort.

“That’s why we’re going to be doing a lot of public outreach,” Kurtz said, including about the computer model.

Keisha Sedlacek, federal director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said the number of “gaps and holes” in the 2025 draft are a concern — in some places, including goals for conserved lands, the draft includes blanks in lieu of specific numbers. She would also like to see a consistent deadline, such as 2040, with periodic check-ins along the way.

“If we set these interim targets and actually evaluate the program — not every 10 years, but every couple of years — to see what tweaks we need to make based on the best available science, we’ll have a stronger, more efficient program moving forward,” Sedlacek said.

The update comes at a time of uncertain federal support for bay cleanup programs. The Trump administration has moved to slash funding for agencies that assist with bay clean-up, including the EPA, the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — but it has so far proposed stable funding for the Chesapeake Bay Program, which Trump had targeted for elimination during his first term.

Kristin Reilly, director of the Choose Clean Water Coalition, which represents about 300 environmental organizations in the bay region, said the $92 million in funding for the Bay Program, while it is critical, is only “one piece of the puzzle.”

“These states and federal agencies are recommitting to the work and coming up with these revised goals and outcomes,” Reilly said, “when it’s being proposed that the infrastructure around achieving them could be gone.”

In a statement, new EPA Region 3 Administrator Amy Von Blarcom-Lackey, said her agency “stands unwavering in its commitment to restore the Bay and its watershed.”

“EPA is investing in the future of the Chesapeake Bay and continues to support our state and local government partners to implement on-the-ground projects that improve water quality and restore living resources along this essential ecosystem,” her statement said.

Blarcom-Lackey, who was raised on a Pennsylvania dairy farm and has a background in agricultural lobbying, did not say whether the EPA would continue enhanced enforcement efforts in Pennsylvania that started during the Biden administration. Pennsylvania, with its high density of farmland, is one of the states furthest behind on its goals for nutrients and sediment.

Mindful of the administration’s antipathy toward climate change and DEI, Reilly said some language in the document changed at the request of federal agencies. While the 2014 agreement cited “climate resiliency,” the 2025 version references “changing environmental conditions.” The 2025 draft also jettisons a reference to “diversity” in clean-up efforts, instead calling for a  “wide range of engaged individuals whose communities enjoy access to the waters and natural landscapes of the region.”

Killius said the committee wanted to bypass buzzwords and focus on “saying what we mean.”

Killius said the new bay agreement was also informed by a groundbreaking 2023 study, called the Comprehensive Evaluation of System response, or CESR. That report cited a number of reasons for the struggle to attain the 2025 goals — and for the bay’s lackluster response to the pollution reductions achieved thus far — including the possibility that the Bay Program’s current computer model could be overestimating phosphorus reductions.

But mainly, while jurisdictions were able to cut pollution from wastewater treatment plants and other “point” sources, they struggled to reduce pollution from “nonpoint” sources, including farm fields and city streets.

The report delivered a sobering message: Portions of the bay, especially the deepest reaches, may never meet standards for criteria such as dissolved oxygen. Targeting shallow-water areas, and triggering an ecosystem turnaround, could have more impact on the health of the bay than focusing on the total nutrient runoff and its impact on the deep channel.

Killius points to a section in the revised agreement about fish habitat, which calls for a focus on improving “the quantity and quality of shallow water fish habitat in tidal areas.” Kurtz points to revised oyster goals, which include mention of aquaculture and the native fishery, rather than on oyster sanctuaries — where no harvesting occurs.

But some observers worry that the agreement hasn’t gone far enough to address nonpoint source pollution and restore ecosystems. That includes Gerald Winegrad, a former state senator and vocal critic of current bay policy.

He noted that some goals were revised downward, including for forested lands and wetlands. While the 2014 agreement called for states to “create or re-establish 85,000 acres of tidal and non-tidal wetlands” by 2025, the draft calls for 3,000 restored acres by 2035.

“When you look at forest cover, and you look at [forest] buffers, and you look at wetlands — three very important things, like the heart, lungs, kidneys of the bay — it is a complete flop compared to what was already required,” Winegrad said of the draft document.

He was frustrated, too, that the agreement didn’t specifically mention the TMDL numbers for nutrient and sediment reductions — or set a new deadline.

“This has been kicking the can down the road, moving the goal post — all the worst little idioms you can use to say that there is no political courage to really restore the Chesapeake Bay with the hard choices that have to be made,” Winegrad said.

Targets for restoring submerged aquatic vegetation were also revised down from a goal of 130,000 acres by 2025, to interim targets of 90,000 acres by 2030 and 95,000 acres by 2035.

Leila Duman, Chesapeake and coastal bays restoration officer for Maryland DNR, said the ultimate goal is still to reach 196,000 acres of grass coverage across the entire bay.

“That said, that’s not something we can get to in the next 10 years,” Duman said. “Part of this revision process was really about making goals achievable.”

The agreement also includes altogether new goals, such as a first-time goal for freshwater mussels, calling for development of mussel conservation plans in five bay tributaries by 2035. Filter feeders, like mussels and oysters, remove harmful nutrients from the water, making them a critical piece of the effort to cut pollution in the estuary.

“The oyster goal is so important,” Kurtz said. “But that really is focused on the tidal part. And what mussels really gets us is more of that work in the freshwater space.”

On the bay’s beloved blue crabs, the draft agreement calls for keeping the fishery at sustainable levels, but defers to a baywide stock assessment, which is coming out in 2026, on what the population levels ought to be.

Kurtz acknowledged that not all parts of the draft plan use specific numbers just yet.

“But I think that’s also reflective of reality. We’re continually improving the science,” he said.

After revisions, the document will head to the Bay Program’s executive council, which includes state and federal leaders such as Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D), for final approval. Officials are urging interested parties to submit feedback as soon as possible — before a Sept. 1 deadline, Kurtz said.

“If you are a community that reads this and says: ‘Well, this isn’t for us,’ we need to know that,” Kurtz said. “Because we want this to be for every single person within this massive watershed.”

– This story was updated on July 7 to include a comment from EPA Region 3 Administrator Amy Von Blarcom-Lackey.